Steve Wozniak, after getting his Nokia Lumia 900: "I'm shocked" how beautiful Windows Phone is

We knew Steve Wozniak was lining up for a Nokia Lumia 900, but did he actually get the phone, and, if yes, does he like it? Turns out, the answer is “yes” to both, according to an interview Dan Patterson, Todd Moore and Gina Smith (who also co-wrote his autobiography) from aNewDomain conducted with the computing legend.

Although the iPhone remains as his main device – due to its better app ecosystem, mostly – the Apple co-founder says that he really likes the “personal experience” of the Windows Phone and will carry the Lumia “with me almost everywhere”. Here are some quotes we dug up from the interview:

Just for looks and beauty, I definitely favor the Windows 7 Phone over Android.

I’m kinda shocked how every screen is much more beautiful than the same apps on Android and iPhone.

I’m just shocked, I haven’t seen anything yet [in Windows Phone] that isn’t more beautiful than the other platforms.

It’s more intuitive and beautiful.

As far as eyes and visual, the Windows Phone is beautiful. […] Especially compared to Android, it’s just no contest. The iPhone has a lot of beauty and simplicity, and you don’t get lost as much in it, but it’s more awkward to use.

It [the animation and design] just makes me feel like “oh my gosh, I’m more with a friend than I’m with a tool”.

Woz also goes into quite a lot of detail about the particular user interface elements that he likes, such as the overflowing text in panoramic views, how “things are zooming in from the left and zooming in from the right”, the animations when the app bar buttons pop up, and so on, but also raises some valid criticisms – in addition to the relative lack of third-party apps, he notes how there is no universal speech input as on Android or iOS.

Still, such praise from someone as well-respected as Steve Wozniak, who is known to regularly line up for new iPhone releases just to be like the regular folks, is definitely a great thing, and falls in line with what other people like Path founder Dave Morin, who also used to work for Apple, said about Windows Phone recently.

Update: Steve Wozniak himself left a follow-up comment on the original article (thanks for the tip, Favorite Browser):

Wrong. iPhone is my favorite phone. I did give my opinion that the Windows 7 Phone had superior visual appearance and operation cues that were also more attractive. In my opinion, it sets the mark for user interface. I would recommend it over my Android phones given that it doesn’t yet have the breadth of apps. I surmise that Microsoft hired someone from Apple and put money into having a role in the UI and appearance of some key apps. I also surmised that Steve Jobs might have been reincarnated at MS due to a lot of what I see and feel with this phone making me think of a lot of great Apple things.

The full interview is embedded below.

Source: aNewDomain, via WPCentral